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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Matt Castille of the Vas Deferens also produced the Mazinga Phaser album, Cruising In The Neon Glories (Aether, 1996), a predominantly instrumental record.
The quintet (Wanz Dover and Eric Hermeyer on guitars, Jessica Nelson on keyboards, Cole Wheeler on bass, Mike Throneberry on drums), based in Dallas, composes even more sophisticated, blurred, and fragmented collages. The thread of continuity is completely absent in Katia, a piano sonata over a background of otherworldly noises; in Dub Sonic At The Jelly Kubota, chamber music for bebop trumpet and dub rumbles; and in the gentle lullaby of Alice Coltrane. What matters is not so much the melody (often absent or imperceptible), nor generally the narrative structure, but the soundscape itself, dense with peripheral events and harmonic contradictions. The anemic serenade of Ling Ling And Pepper, the cosmic soul of Glass Of Glycerine, and the ethereal bossa nova of Infinity For Now are only lightly hinted at by the singer: the instruments steal the scene. Jessica Nelsons vocalizations and Carl Poetchkes trumpet embellish arrangements that rely primarily on keyboards and studio effects.
Everything converges in the formidable psychedelic, rhythm-and-blues, and drumnbass carousel of New Journeys To The Edge. And everything is swallowed by the melancholic free-jazz elegy of the final track, Third Arm. These are two instrumental tracks of the highest class, in which the center of gravity, the fire, constantly shifts in search of ever more challenging equilibria.
Dover is also the organizer of the "Melodica" festival, held annually in Texas, but he soon decides to focus on non-musical activities, leaving the group in the hands of Nelson and Poetchke. Cole Wheeler also participates in Ghostcar The Radio Entro For Bionic Ears.
Nelsons voice is the protagonist of the subsequent Abandinallhope (Idol, 1998), an album organized and produced in a more traditional manner, with a marked return to the song form. Japanese Space Opera, Hot Weird, and A Diamond In Shrink Wrap now evoke the Mercury Rev.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
After Wanz Dover left to form the Falcon Project, Jessica Nelson became the pivotal factor in the band's
music.
As documented by Dissatisfied Customers Of Hallucination (Idol, 2000),
the rest of the band has improved technically, but the result is that
each member plays his instrument in a "classical" manner, thereby reducing
the element of originality that was pretty much the sole purpose of Mazinga
Phaser. The good news is that they sound more like a chamber ensemble, whether
in the dissonant Alpha Jerk, in the tribal Time Is Its Own Revenge
or in the galactic Wee-Gee. The bad news is that
this is far less phantasmagoric than their first album, and even less
interesting than the (disappointing) second album. Mazinga Phaser is becoming
a pale copy of Mercury Rev without the solemnity.
A few touches of sheer class (far far away from their models) redeem the album:
Afflux, Apocalypso and Counting Breaths.
The Revenge Of Sonic Soular (Idol, 1999) adds
dub, jazz and techno to Wanz Dover's recipe for hallucinated music.
Mwanza "Wanz" Dover, an electro-acoustic researchers at the University of North Texas, experimented with real-time audio synthesis programs on the albums credited to Falcon Project: The Revenge Of Sonic Soular (1999) and Lights, Karma, Action (2000).
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